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Yellow Jackets

I'm having a problem with yellow jackets and wondered if anyone knows of a sure fire way to catch/trap them. They hang around one hive all the time. I see them killing bees once in awhile and this hive is the weakest of my six. The traps sold at Mann Lake etc. are pathetic and the bait only lasts two weeks anyway. Looking for something better, maybe a home remedy someone has come up with. Thank you.

Re: Yellow Jackets

Are you limiting the area your bee's have to defend with a reducer or is your hive wide open? We have lots of critters that would like to get in the hive but I use screen bottom boards for venilation and no more than 1/4 X 2" opening for the bee's to defend. You may need to get your bee population up!

Re: Yellow Jackets

Take a plastic soda/water bottle. Cut the top of it off just below where the tapered neck transitions into the body proper.

Partially fill body with sugar water (enough so that you leave a good half inch of empty air between the mouth of the bottle and the water level, see step below).

Invert "lid" so that the cone points down.

Place next to hive.

Bees will (mostly) ignore it, yellow jackets will crawl in to get the sugar water and be unable to figure out how to escape back up the bottle neck and drown. Just clean out the dead ones every couple of days so they don't decay, as the smell will warn off the others.

Had some yellow jackets harassing my hive. Built one of these from an empty bottle from the car floorboard, killed every YJ that knew where the hive was over about a week, haven't had any more problems with them since then.

Re: Yellow Jackets

Set traps! use two litter plastic bottle cut the top off at the shoulder. Turn top inside bottom & staple around the whole thing. Now you have a deep cup with a funnel pointing down, add some fruit juice and one table spoon of ground raw meat. Set them (or hang) around and you will catch them "Meat Bees". Yellow jackets are attracted by dead meet smell so adding a little more meat or setting new traps will help fight them to a manageable level.

I also have 20 or 30 checking the ground out around my hives (another reason to raise your hives up) and any bees unfortunate enough to be on the ground will quickly get cut up and hauled away! As we move more toward fall they will become even more ferocious and a lot of times people get stung because the be is trying to take a bite of meat out of your body!

Sometimes you can find their paper wasp like nest and spray them also. Here on the West Coast (including Oregon) we have seven or eight different species some will form nest above ground and some in the ground. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket . The ones in the ground are the easiest to kill before morning place a large clear bowl over there hive entrance. They get confused and cannot find food and will starve to death.

They are a major part of the insect circle of life so I just set traps to try to find a compromise balance point.

Good luck, Nobull 56

while I was writing this a very similar post beat me to it!!

Last edited by nobull56; 08-23-2013 at 11:40 AM.
Reason: Edmen was fast

Re: Yellow Jackets

I bait my wasp traps with a chunk of salmon and a bit of water, the wasps here are eating salmon this time of year and seem very attracted to it, a piece of fruit also works good if you have fruit nearby, they seem to go mostly for whatever they are finding around at the time you place the trap.

Re: Yellow Jackets

Re: Yellow Jackets

Don't be afraid to set out multiple traps....you'll get more hornets. Clean them out every day or two and replace the fruit or meat or it will get moldy and they won't go in trap. I have had the same issue....I think it is caused by the lack of rain (80 days) and the resulting lack of food (other bugs)....they are very aggressive this time of year... The fish idea is a very good one that I'll try....

Re: Yellow Jackets

These type of traps work very well. I have set them in the past and seen them full of yellow jackets. This year, at the end of each day, I was thinking of powdering all the yellow jackets with sevin dust and then letting them back into the wild. I was thinking that all these yellow jackets would head home, back to their hive and eventually I would solve the problem at the source.

Re: Yellow Jackets

I have heard of others doing this, but with unknown success...kind of launching a SCUD..... My fight with the yellow jackets is too close to the hive... and I have observed them hitting the ramp, trying to go in (and actually successful), and then getting chased out by the girls....

If the YJ's were in the sevin and then went directly to their own hive, that would be one thing, but I don't know if it's the case...

Risk[from Wikipedia, on Sevin]

Carbaryl kills both targeted (e.g. malaria-carrying mosquitos) and beneficial insects (e.g. honeybees), as well as crustaceans.

Although approved for more than 100 crops in the US, carbaryl is illegal in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Iran, Germany, and Angola.[3]

I suppose if you set up some baits well away from the hives, and dusted them you may have some sucess, but for me, I'll just take satisfaction in traps, and smashing the little bastards when they land.... if you kill a few, it will draw them in to eat their own and then it's curtains! I'll pass on the Sevin for my deal...